It has been a couple of months since Vibrato 2010 was made available for download, and I was wondering how the artists who helped make it possible were getting on, so I asked. Here are the answers I received – or pieced together from various emails, Gmail chats, tweets, etc.:

01. The Great Wilderness – We’ve played a lot in the past two months – both acoustic and full band shows – in Costa Rica, of course. The buzz has been growing locally, we have new people coming to our shows every time, which pleases us ’cause in 2010 we were much more known outside Costa Rica.

We’ve surpassed 10,0000 plays on Bandcamp (11,318 as of 10 February), and we were chosen as the #1 new underground act of 2010 by the Latin American online magazine Cuchara Sonica, which is read by people in countries like Argentina, Colombia, Spain and Mexico.

We’re about to record the first single of our third album. The song is called “Dark Horse” – it’s a two part composition, and the album will probably come out in August or September 2011. We plan to re-record, mix, and master Afterimages of Glowing Visions ’cause we didn’t really like the version that came out last year. The songs will be the same, but we want a production that’s closer to our live sound, and for that, we’ll be working with the same team that helped us create Tiny Monsters.

There will be videos this year as well: one each for the new versions of “1956” and “Sandbox” and one for “Dark Horse” – at least that’s what we want to do; we’re in talks with several directors.

We might be touring the UK this summer, and we might be playing Panama City as well.

02. The Sunshine Factory – Released Sugar Live before heading out on a recently concluded, seven-stop tour of Florida. Upon returning, Robert Taylor had this to say: “As for our trip, it was great, and crazy, and all those good things that touring brings… We have had multiple return offers and are headed back down to appear on a live show on Tampa Radio as well as [play] The Sensory Overload Fest in Tampa… So good things…”

The band is working on an, as yet, unnamed EP and rehearsing in preparation for their upcoming tour of the East Coast, which includes a spot in Boston’s Deep Heaven Now Fest.

03. Whirl – We are set to go into the studio to record a two-song, 7″ single entitled June in exactly nine days [19 February]. I can’t say what exactly, but big things are happening for Whirl in the coming weeks.NWs: Sounds good. I noticed that you guys have been hanging around in the top ten on Bandcamp’s Shoegaze and Dream Pop pages, has this translated into any kind of meaningful sales?Whirl: Ha, I wasn’t aware of that. Sales remain roughly the same. We actually have our 12″ pre-orders up through our Bandcamp page, and [it] should be released in early March.NWs: How are the vinyl sales doing?Whirl: Well, they’ve only been up for a week now, but we’ve sold quite a few.NWs: This 12″, is that Distressor?Whirl: Yes.

Whirl: Also, I have these photos of us, if you’d like to post the link.

NWs: What’s happening with the split EPs?Whirl: We’re still on for the split with Nostalgist (the mystery, Washington-based band alluded to in the December interview). That realease should be out around Summer.NWs: I’ve not heard of Nostalgist. Shoegaze?Whirl: Yes, Shoegaze/Dream Pop, but done very well.NWs: Think they’d like to be on a compilation?Whirl: Thus far, they don’t have any material to release aside from what we are doing together.

04. Ten Million Lights – has been super busy playing shows and festivals with some of our favorite bands in Portland and Seattle. We’re excited that a friend’s band, Starry Saints, just completed a remix of our song “Still Point”, which we will put on an EP – along with some covers that we played at The Fuzzy Ball – to be released later this year. We are also working on some demos for our next record. Other than that, we’ve just been playing in the Portland Winter rain and puddlestomping in our rubber boots.

In January, we made our well-received debut at Doug Fir Lounge with The Prids and The Upsidedown. Our show was filmed by NW Live Music, a public access show from Portland. Check out this video.

05. C’est la Mort – Closed out 2010 by celebrating Blicky‘s record release (glorious Kraut-Punk) and playing Reverb Records’ The Fuzzy Ball all-star shoegazer-stravaganza (NW shoegazing at its finest). We are planning a west coast tour and getting ready to record again – with Scott Colburn (Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Sun City Girls).

06. Anne – We are currently writing for our upcoming 7″ entitled Family Is a Nest of Suffering. We are also waiting for American Gods to finish up their song for the split 7″ we are releasing with them. We now have merch, which includes two t-shirts, a crewneck sweatshirt, and a cotton bag – we still have to do pictures, but the merch page should be up this weekend. At the end of this month, we have a weekend of shows down in California. We are still working on some of the dates and venues, but here is the info for our February 25th show in San Francisco with Whirl and The Gregors“: early show (6pm – $5 admission) at Sub-Mission Art Space, 2183 Mission Street.

NWs: Details of two more California dates available here, but the merch page is still a work in progress.

07. Gypsy Death and You – The last few months have been extremely busy for us. We have played some super Philly shows with some great bands from all over the country. It seems we’re also the kings of playing other people’s album release shows. We just played a show in NJ for Green Paper‘s debut album release. Within the next two weeks, we’ll be playing two more album release shows: one on February 17 in Brooklyn for Dream Diary (along with our friends Telenovelas), and one in Philly on March 3rd for Little Black Rainclouds.

Speaking of EPs, we’ve been recording furiously for our own release; this time we’ve taken to the studio. We’ve also taken aboard two of our producer/engineer friends, Clark and Eric. These two are not only helping us with the mundane tasks of recording, but they also help us to critically examine our compositions and arrangements before making any agreed upon revisions. With their input and fresh ideas, we’re confident that this EP will be even more exciting than our last. We’re a bit more than halfway done with the recordings, and we’ve begun to contact some fellow groups for the release party. We will, hopefully, be bringing together some of our favorite artists from the various gigs we’ve played on the East Coast for one, big, exciting show.

We’ve got a bit of internet coverage recently as well. We were Band of the Day on NewBandDay, and received a really nice review on Frissonic.

Oh, by the way, we’ll be going on an East Coast mini-tour in early September 2011!

08. American Gods – Our first EP, titled Chariot the Ghost is being released by Withdrawal Records and will be available for digital download through iTunes, Amazon and other distributors Friday, Feb 18. The gatefold 12” vinyl will be ready to ship at the end of February, and pre-orders will be taken soon.

Right now we’re mixing a song for a split 7” with Anne due out on Withdrawal this Spring. After talking with Whirl about a split for the better part of a year, we’d like to make that our priority as soon as we finish this song.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to play shows throughout the South and, hopefully, embark on a U.S. tour later this year. As always, we’ll be writing and recording new material for other releases in the works.